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Monday, September 22, 2014

It takes more than a goldendoodle to save a marriage. And stylist Jessica Champlin knows it. She and her ex-husband, investigative journalist Sebastian Hess, had too many irreconcilable differences for even their beloved dog Baxter to heal. So they agreed to joint custody and their lives settled into a prickly normalcy. But when Baxter heroically rescues a child and the video goes viral, Jessica and Sebastian are thrown together again, and her life takes some unexpected twists. Suddenly she's in the spotlight with everyone watching—the press, the new guy she's seeing, Sebastian and the past she never imagined she would face again. Soon there is only one person by her side – and it is the person Jessica least expected. She is willing to open up to as new normal…just as long as Baxter approves.

Quite a departure from Laura Caldwell's legal thrillers! The Chicago-based lawyer turned novelist is known mainly for her critically acclaimed murder mysteries (Look Closely, The Good Liar, The Izzy McNeil Mystery series), but she's now back on the scene with a fun new romance that pet-lovers will adore. Laura is on the blog to talk more in detail about her latest release, THE DOG PARK (Mira, July 2014), and to share with Mina's Bookshelf's readers a juicy excerpt. Enjoy!

Q&A with Laura Caldwell

Describe your latest book in 15 words or
less.

THE DOG PARK is about a couple who
shares joint custody of their dog who becomes suddenly famous when a video of
him goes viral.

What inspired you to write THE DOG PARK?

I’d been writing mysteries and
thrillers for a while, including six books featuring my series character, Izzy
McNeil. I had one book left in my contract and started plotting the seventh. At
the time, I had just gotten my puppy, Shafer, and was head over heels. My publishers
pointed out that my social media posts and photos had gone from books and
mysteries to dogs and dogs and dogs. And they had an idea — why not write a
novel involving a dog? A great beach book, something fast-moving and a little
sexy. And maybe, just maybe, a happy ending. I was in.

In THE DOG PARK, we meet Baxter, a loving
and lovable goldendoodle. Is there a real-life Baxter? Who were the doggie
models for Baxter?

My dog, Shafer, was a typical
goldendoodle puppy — adorable and friendly. And she was a big walker, so we
walked all over the city, good weather or bad. (I live in Chicago and so
Shafer, like the rest of us, had to wear boots and eight layers and complain as
little as possible.) Shafer met people everywhere. And after she started
spending a few days a week with a well-known dog walker, she started to know
people on the street I’d never met. I wondered what it would be like if Shafer
herself became really well-known. Say from a video or something. Baxter from
THE DOG PARK was formed.

Jessica Champlin seems fond of adorning
Baxter in flashy accessories. How does your furry friend feel about such snazzy
duds?

Shafer seems to feel good about
sparkly collars but put her in a coat and gives me about 20 minutes.

What are you doing to reach out to
readers and dog enthusiasts?

Every book
signing has been dog-friendly and encouraging. We had them at pet stores and
boutiques that allow dogs. We gave part of the proceeds to rescues and I did a
promotion at a PAWS 5K run.

If you could compare your dog to any
celebrity, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Shafer is her
own celebrity! She knows she should update her Twitter page more often. But she
makes people happy wherever she goes. She loves to work a crowd at the beach.

Why did you choose to make a dog
the central character of the novel?

We wanted THE DOG PARK to be
entertaining and fun, but my publisher really wanted a book with strong
characters and strong relationships. Shortly into the book, I realized that
Baxter, the dog whom I’d seen as more of a sub character (albeit one who drives
much of the action), was definitely much more. Just like a lot of our pets,
Baxter is a creature with his own personality. His own preferences and tastes
and quirks.

What do you read for pleasure?

Right now I'm
reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
I started it a few times and put it down. Now that I’m into it, I look forward
to reading it all day. That’s one of my favorite feelings in the world. I’m
also looking forward to reading The
Fortune Hunter by Daisy Goodwin.

What do you hope readers will take
away from the book?

Overlaying all of the book is the
profound, and yet often profoundly different, relationship that each different
person has with their dog. There’s also the fact that social media has changed
everything. It’s thrilling, but a little jarring and scary, to think that a
person can be unknown at breakfast and trending on the news that night.

What was most difficult about
writing THE DOG PARK?

Reliving when
Shafer was hit by a car. But it was cathartic.

What’s next for you? Are you
working on anything new?

Anatomy of Innocence, an anthology
pairing thriller writers with exonerees to tell the story of how wrongful
convictions happen.

How was writing THE DOG PARK, a
contemporary romance, different from your previous mystery and thriller work?

I couldn't
help but have long-buried secrets revealed. You never get the mystery writer
out of your blood.

What was your favorite scene in THE
DOG PARK?

I love the
first scene – the post-divorce banter, the love of the dog.

Laura Caldwell has established herself as a force to be reckoned with. Born in Chicago, Laura attended University of Iowa and Loyola Law School. After a year or so of practicing law, she started to feel a lack of creativity in her life - and began to write. After a few years, she took an extended sabbatical to focus on her writing. Since her debut in 2002, Laura has written mysteries, legal thrillers, women’s fiction, and non-fiction. In 2005, Laura returned to practicing law to defend a young man charged with murder. This case inspired her to start Life After Innocence Project at Loyola University Chicago School of Law and also became the subject of Laura’s first work of non-fiction, LONG WAY HOME (2009). Laura is currently a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Excerpt from The Dog Park by Laura Caldwell

“Jess,
enough with this, okay?” Sebastian said in a weary-trending-toward-cranky tone.
He held out a small bag that read Neiman Marcus. My divorced mind ruffled
through a few statements and questions — What is it? He never used to shop at
Neiman Marcus. Judging by the size of the bag it would have to be an accessory.
Jewelry? For me?

But
the tone of my ex-husband’s voice had pretty much eliminated the possibility
that it was a gift. Also, Sebastian hadn’t bought me jewelry in a long while,
and except for my engagement ring, Sebastian never bought jewelry in the United
States. Always it was when he was overseas, on a story. Like the beaded
chandelier earrings from a country in Africa I’d never heard of and the vintage
Iraqi headdress that I wear as a necklace.

Baxter
— our blond, fluffy dog — was in my arms. I kissed him on the head. “I missed
you, Baxy,” I said. “I missed you so much.”

He
licked my chin, and his butt squirmed as he wagged his tail. Baxy’s fifteen
pounds of dog against my chest was the most comforting weight in the world to
me. When I finally put him down, he tore into my bedroom where he had toys
stashed under a chaise lounge, which he hadn’t seen in a week while Sebastian
had him.

As
Baxter rounded the corner, I looked in the bag. I laughed.

“It’s
not that funny,” Sebastian said.

“Oh,
c’mon.” I lifted from the bag Baxter’s blue collar and leash that I had sewn
gold stars onto — stars that had come from an old Halloween costume of
Sebastian’s.

The
party had been Harry Potter-themed, and as much as Sebastian would normally
have dismissed it as ridiculous, it had been hosted by a journalist he had
always emulated. And so Sebastian had been a wizard, dressed in a purple robe
with stars and a pointed hat. It’s not that he hadn’t pulled it off, I just
liked to needle him when I could. I also liked the idea of a guys’ guy like
Sebastian having to walk around with a dog in bedazzled gear. Or maybe I hoped
the goofy collar could lessen the pain of our weekly exchange — Here’s the dog
back. It’s your turn to take care of this thing we both love like a kid, the
dog we got when we were trying to keep our marriage intact.

“I
mean, why would you even spend your time doing something like that?” Sebastian
asked.

“You’re
saying that. Not me. I never said that.” Sebastian scoffed and shook his head.

Here
we were again — in the ruts of a much-treaded argument.

He
pointed at the bag. “That stuff is not what you do with your styling business
anyway. You dress people.”

“Do
you even know what that means?”

Why
did I do this? What made me want to bug him, to try and draw him into this
crap?

Because
it’s all you have left.

That
was the thought that answered me, and it rang like a bell, a few loud chimes.
Then the sound died into the distance, drifting away, just like we had done.

The
strong muscles of Sebastian’s jaw tensed, clenched. He ran a hand over his
curly brown hair that was cut extra short for the summer. “Of course I know
what that means. To an extent.”

In
total, Sebastian and I had known each other for seven years — five of them
married, the last of them divorced — and yet we still didn’t have a handle on
what the other did for a living. Sebastian deliberately withheld, and so I
guess I did it, too, in retribution.

I
looked in the bag. “The collar and the leash.” I picked them up and jangled
them together for effect.

“First
of all, look at those.” Another shake of his head. “Baxter is a boy. Hell, he’s
three years old. Bax is a man now.”

At
the sound of his name, Baxter tore into the kitchen and dropped a white rubber
ball at our feet, his tail thumping. Throw it for me, I could hear him
thinking. C’mon, throw it for me.

Like
a true child of divorce, Baxter always seemed to know when to deflect the
situation.

I
picked up the ball and threw it down the hall. He scampered after it, sliding a
little on the hardwood floors.

“He’s
a man who likes this collar and leash,” I said, lifting the bag a little.

“How
do you know he likes it?”

“He
prances around.”

“Baxy
does not prance,” Sebastian said.

“You
know he does.”

I
both hated and loved the familiar feel of the conversation, the verbal poking
at one another.

“He’s
a fifteen-pound prancing machine,” I added, another jab.

“He
only prances,” Sebastian pointed out, “when he’s really happy.”

“Exactly.
And he prances when he’s wearing that collar. Point made.”

Sebastian
just looked at me.

“Anyway…”
I said, then let my words die.

“Anyway,”
he repeated.

A
beat went by. Baxter ran into the kitchen again, dropped the ball. He was a
mini goldendoodle — a mix of golden retriever and poodle — and the golden part
must have had strong genes because the dog would retrieve all day if we let
him.

Sebastian
lifted the ball, tossed it again.

“Baxter
brought something else back,” he said, pointing at the bag.

I
looked inside again. A white plastic bag was folded over and lay at the bottom.
I picked it up and lifted a cellophane bag from inside. “Rawhide,” I read from
the package. “Huh.” I looked at it — half-eaten. I looked back up at Sebastian.
“Did you feed him this while he was with you?”

Sebastian
raised his eyebrows, gave a slight smile.

That
mouth, with its fuller bottom lip. It still got me sometimes. There was the
rest of Sebastian, too — the strong body, wide shoulders and long arms that
felt so good wrapped around me. But it was that lip most of all that used to
get me. I ignored it, looked instead somewhere in the area of his forehead.

I’d
been led by our dog trainer to give Baxter a raw diet, lured by the promises of
a glossy coat and exceptional health. But when you have your dog every other
week, raw foods are hard to keep around all the time. (And kind of unpleasant
to serve.)

Sebastian
sighed a little and searched my eyes with his. But then he opened his mouth.
“I’m on my way to the airport.”

Wounds,
no longer old, felt jabbed, hurt again. Sebastian was a war correspondent, one
of the most well respected. His job had long been our sticking point — his need
to go overseas, and his agreeing to not tell anyone, including his spouse,
where he was headed. I knew military spouses had to deal with that, but I
hadn’t married military, and I hadn’t realized the extent of his investigative
writing — the embedding with the troops, the being in the middle of the action.

So
he was off once more. I knew better than to ask where he was going.

But
apparently he felt some kind of duty to try and make nice. “It’s a small conflict.”

A
“small conflict” could mean a bloody, ruthless battle in a small Middle Eastern
territory. But “small conflict” did not mean small casualties. Sebastian
himself had returned from a “small conflict” with a gash across his collarbone
that looked a lot like someone had tried to cut his throat. He still hadn’t
told me what had happened.

I
still didn’t know where he’d been because the newspaper never published his
piece for whatever reason.

Baxter
ran back into the foyer, a blue earthworm toy hanging from his mouth.

“C’mere,
Dogger,” Sebastian said. His own nickname for Baxter. He picked him up. “I
suppose you’re going to the dog park now?” he asked me. I thought I heard
another small sigh.

“You
know that you can still go to the dog park, right? I didn’t get that in the
divorce.” I paused, made my voice kinder. “I don’t know why you don’t go when
he’s with you.”

Sebastian
shrugged, petted Baxter. “I thought I would find a park by my neighborhood. But
they’re not the same. He doesn’t have his buddies.”

I
stayed silent. Even when we were together, I was the one, more than Sebastian,
who took Bax to the park. And even when Sebastian did, he didn’t often talk to
the owners of Baxter’s dog buddies, like I did. Sebastian was intent on quality
time with the dog, throwing Baxy’s ball over and over, then having him sit and
stay for minutes on end before he could retrieve it. He taught Baxter tricks
that his father had taught their family golden retrievers over the years. We
got the dog shortly after his dad died.

So
it seemed obvious to me that Sebastian could continue to do those things in
another park. I hadn’t expected him to miss the park that we went to, as he
apparently did. But I guess change is tough for everyone, even a tough guy like
Sebastian.

He
stood. “I should go.”

I
knew better than to ask when he’d return, because I knew the answer. When I
have the story. That’s what he always said.

I
used to think, Why aren’t we your story? I want to be your story.

We
had made a plan — move from New York, where we were living at the time, to
Chicago (his hometown) where he would work as a regular journalist. It “worked”
for a little while. A year or so. But ultimately Sebastian couldn’t stop. He
couldn’t explain why, but he had to be the correspondent who crossed enemy
lines in the middle of the night. I encouraged him to let me in. Keep the job,
I’d said. I’d get used to worrying about him, I’d told him. That was okay. But
bring me into the fold, tell me what you do, what you feel when you’re there, how
I can support you when you’re here.

He
decided that it would be breaking confidences and so he couldn’t tell me — not
about the stories he was covering, where he was covering them or who he was
covering them with. I could read the pieces in the paper, usually a day or two
ahead of everyone else. So I would know then, for example, that he’d been in
Afghanistan, embedded with a Navy SEAL team that took out a top-level
terrorist. I would also read the byline and see that he sometimes had
cowriters. But he couldn’t fill in any blanks. He couldn’t answer questions.
And if the story had been killed and never published, he couldn’t give me any
clues. Or he wouldn’t. Same thing.

His
inability showed me the gaps in our relationship. I had to decide if I could live
with the not knowing, the having to make a leap of faith to trust him, when the
fact was I knew little about how my husband spent his professional life. And,
therefore, much of his life.

I
decided I couldn’t do that. Or maybe I just couldn’t live with the
disappointment of not having the kind of love I wanted. I’d thought that with
Sebastian I’d had the kind of love my parents had, the kind I’d felt once
before. But neither turned out to be true. And eventually, with Sebastian, the
ball I’d been pushing uphill for so long started to roll back over me.

Now
I looked at Sebastian, said nothing, just stared into his eyes, and some bigger
strength kicked in. I was past that, I told myself. I was way past it, and I
was past him.

I’d
started my life over once before. And under much, much, much worse
circumstances. I knew I could do it again. I could survive.

Neither
of us said anything. But I felt a joint sense of tiredness. We’re done.

“Okay,”
I said, just to say something.

When
Sebastian didn’t reply, the moment of pause gave me time to make a decision. I
decided then I wasn’t just going to survive. I was going to thrive. I was going
to come alive.

Right
now. Those words intoned through me.

And
suddenly it seemed clear what I had to do right then, how I had to conduct
myself going forward. There would be no more seeing life as an endurance
exercise. No more considering dates just because a software program told me I
should. I wouldn’t just react to Sebastian or the lack of him. I would stop
seeing everything as a reminder of the lives past. I would open my eyes and see
things differently.

About Me

Mother of two amazing kids, Miss A™ entertainment columnist, avid reader bordering book-fetishism. Books are my childhood friends, my stress-relief therapy, my wings to fly to faraway lands and distant times, my source of knowledge and inspiration. I simply adore them and consume them aplenty. My "book love affair" began in my early teens with the Bronte sisters, Dickens, Austen, Poe, Conrad, and James. My taste in reading was shaped by those masters and still today, when I read fiction, I appreciate the dark tones, the Gothic touches, and the psychological insight typical of those classics.